


A Broken Shield

by Cupcakemolotov



Series: come alive [61]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ex-Detective!Caroline, F/M, Honestly Klaus as a witch is a terrible idea, Implied Magical Shenanagins, Implied Past Murder Investigations, Light Angst, Magic-Users, Other Fanasty Creatures, Technically Mafia!Klaus, Though Not Truely Explained Yet, Werewolf!Caroline, Werewolves, Witch!Klaus, not relationship angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:41:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28735899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakemolotov/pseuds/Cupcakemolotov
Summary: Being a werewolf in a police department was never easy, particularly when the witch in charge of the local mafia was someone her wolf was very, very interested in. Being forced out of the department due to werewolf politics makes it even harder for Caroline to keep Klaus in his nice, neat box of cannot happen. Particularly when Klaus has made it clear he would like to change his place in her life.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: come alive [61]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/964005
Comments: 19
Kudos: 136





	A Broken Shield

**Author's Note:**

> Posted for Day One: Mythological Creatures of Klaroline AU Week a while back. I apparently forgot to post this to A03 though I could have sworn it I had. Not particularly mythological in this one, but did a bit of a role swap with Klaus as a witch and Caroline as a werewolf. Very AU, and not sticking to any TVD Canon.

The bar was filled with smoke, the low voice of a witch touched with magic singing to the crowd. Not a siren, Caroline decided as she threaded through the swaying bodies, but perhaps a few drops of fae blood. Her voice was sweet if not strong, and her face was engagingly human. It was a song that invited you to stay, to drink, and probably why she had this gig. Once upon a time Caroline would have had a quiet word or five with the owner, given them a nice little fine. Mood magic was illegal when mixed with alcohol unless expressly agreed to and she hadn’t seen any of those warnings.

But she wasn’t a cop anymore. She had no authority and, Caroline supposed, no real inclination to involve herself in this small racquet. She’d only ducked into the bar to make use of its backdoor into an alley. It was a familiar shortcut, and her feet had followed the path without much thought.

Evening was starting to fall over the city, the softly falling snow pretty. She knew somewhere in the city a body was cooling and a detective was cursing the snowfall, the way it would ruin the lingering scents. A werewolf nose might be inadmissible in court, but no one was quite willing to dismiss what it could find, either. That forty-eight hours ago she’d been both detective and wolf had been an assist.

Now, she’d been striped of her badge and her wolf was angry. Pausing to let her eyes scan the room, she tiredly rolled her neck. She’d left the quiet seclusion of her apartment in hopes that a long walk would smooth the jagged edges of being so unceremoniously thrown out of what she’d considered her pack. The way her partner had watched her with a set expression.

Matt hadn’t been surprised.

That had hurt the most. An unexpected betrayal from the one place she’d stopped looking for it inside a department that had slowly turned from home to a false sanctuary over the last decade. Police Chief Mason Lockwood was thinning the ranks, cutting his losses and she’d ended up on the chopping block.

She’d known it was coming as soon as she’d seen the faces around her when she’d walked in, had braced her wolf with a stubborn will when she’d wanted to use teeth. Better to go now, when she still had her dignity and her pride than to let a man who would never be her alpha try to wear her down.

It would be hard to find short term work in the city. No private agency would be willing to take her so soon, and even her nearly impeachable record wouldn’t mean much in a place where human and supernatural no longer blended quite so seamlessly. Something dangerous was brewing in the streets, but those were worries for another day. Tonight, she needed to burn off enough agitation that she could sleep.

Ignoring the little tug of suggestion to continue to linger, her wolf brushed the magic easily aside, Caroline stepped back into the softly falling snow. Shutting the door quietly, she turned let the fresh air clear her nose. The snow was sharp, and underneath it were the lingering hints of those who’d walked the alley before her. The wind shifted, and her hair slid across her face just as another, more familiar scent caught her attention.

Stiffening, she bit down on a growl of frustration as the witch she had been hoping to avoid until she got her emotions under control turned and walked down the narrow alley. He paused for a moment, clearly not expecting to find someone already in the alley, before his mouth curled into a familiar, pleased smile.

With tumbled curls and entirely unfair lips, Klaus Mikaelson skittered along the edge of being almost too pretty. He played his natural charisma very well, oozing charm and enough heat to make the even the most devout of grandmother’s take notice. Caroline wasn’t devout and over the years she’d had cause to be thankful that he didn’t have the same sense of smell that she did.

“Detective,” he murmured. She had been braced for the familiar greeting, but flinched anyway. His smile flattened, gaze turning diamond hard. “So it’s not just a rumor.”

Caroline shoved her fingers into her jacket pockets to hide the way her nails curled into her palms. Forcing herself to ignore the flutter of happiness that coursed through her at his obvious temper on her behalf, she sidestepped his words. “Mikaelson. What are you doing here?”

His gaze narrowed at her deflect, and Klaus moved closer, until the familiar bite of his cologne and his intriguing personal scent overpowered everything else. “I own this bar.”

She blinked and looked over her shoulder at the dilapidated sign, the scarred wood and slightly outdated exterior. It didn’t surprise her that he owned more real estate than the Department knew about, she just hadn’t expected this location to be one of them. Brow arching, she turned back to him, voice dry. “Did you know you’re employing someone with siren blood to sing without proper warnings?”

“Am I?” He shrugged. “Resumes are so hard to trust these days.”

Half-tempted to smile at his blasé tone, she shook her head and made to move further down the alley. Klaus shifted, blocking her path with his body. “Let me buy you a drink.”

Caroline blinked and then frowned. “I’m not in the mood to be interrogated.”

Her firing was still to new, too bloody of a cut for her to be willing to discuss it. That Klaus even knew about it confirmed her long held belief that he had eyes and ears inside the Department. It wasn’t much of a surprise, she’d spent years trying to get a mole inside his organization. It did suck that he’d been better at it than her.

“Just a conversation, Caroline,” he coaxed. “We are something like friends, are we not?”

Her lips pursed as she considered his words. The thing between her and Klaus was complicated. He was pushy at his best, murderous at his worst. But much to her chagrin, her wolf had liked him from the start. Klaus, with his charm and his playfulness that acted as such a thin veneer for the violence that lived beneath his skin. It had taken the cop much longer to be so accepting, so willing to acknowledge the attraction he’d had never once tried to ignore.

Today, heart sick and bruised, she wasn’t sure spending time with him was such a good idea. But then again, Klaus had never betrayed her and she’d given him ample opportunity for it. Maybe some company, familiar as he was, would ease her wolf enough she could sleep.

“One drink,” she agreed finally. Shoving her hair back, she glanced at the bar and shook her head. “Something quieter than here, please.”

His lips curved, dimple a shadowed tease. “I know a place.”

* * *

“When I said quieter, I didn’t necessarily mean empty.” Caroline’s words echoed around the room, and Klaus chuckled as he walked around the bar. His boots were surprisingly soft on the wood, and she absently wondered if he’d spelled them.

Witches.

Giving herself a moment, she admired the feel of the newly renovated bar. If she remembered correctly, the location had been run by a witch twenty years ago and the premise had been badly damaged by a gang fight, and it had shut down shortly after. It had sat empty and rotting for a long time.

She glanced back to find him watching her, his eyes shadowed in the low light. He seemed content to watch her, but she hadn’t been looking for echoes of her own heartbeat, and this place was an old memory. “Do you own this one too?”

Klaus’ laughter was soft. “Not exactly.”

Caroline wondered what that meant. Shaking her head, she let her gaze sweep over the changes. “The update is lovely.”

His gaze sparked with curiosity. “Did you know it before?”

Unwinding her scarf, she finally walked towards him. “I used to live in the area.”

His brows arched high and he tipped his head towards a stool. “I didn’t know that.”

She gave him credit for only allowing a hint of disgruntlement to leak into his voice. Klaus had never taken kindly to her secrets. “Should you have?”

The look he gave her was flat and she laughed. Even if she hadn’t been the cop who butted heads against him and his people the most frequently, she thought that he might have still dug through her life with a fine tooth comb. She didn’t know what it would mean now that they were no longer technically on opposite sides.

“It was a few years before I decided to be a cop again, and long before I’d have been on your radar.” Caroline murmured, answering his unvoiced question as she finished shedding her outer layer.

Klaus considered her words with a little frown, but his face quickly smoothed over. “Perhaps.”

Rolling her eyes, Caroline pointed at the wall lined with bottles. “I was promised a drink.”

He glanced at the collection of booze. “Gin, if I remember correctly?”

She snorted. “Tonight is definitely a tequila night.”

His brow arched but he obligingly hunted for a shot glass, movements sure and easy. Caroline wondered how much time he’d spent behind a bar. Picturing him with rolled back sleeves, the hint of the tattoos that were only partly visible when he bared his forearms, left her feeling a little flushed.

Pre-cop Caroline would have flirted hard.

She’d have to decide what post-cop Caroline wanted.

“Lime?” His voice cut smoothly through her thoughts, and she shook her head.

“Not tonight.” Caroline braced her arm on the bar, studied him as he moved. “When did you work behind a bar?”

His lips curled as he poured her a shot and then set the bottle next to her. “Here and there, as needed. It’s a bit of a rare occurrence now.”

Klaus didn’t give her a chance to respond, lifting his own bottle of choice, some fancy bourbon, and saluting. Tipping her head, Caroline downed her shot, and she let the burn of it ease the knot in her chest. It didn’t touch the grief, but the tight muscles in her neck eased a hair. Maybe she’d consider getting drunk after all.

When she was alone again.

“I am sorry, Caroline,” Klaus said once she’d poured herself another drink, his voice low. She looked up to find him watching her, mouth set in a hard line. “The city will miss you as a detective.”

There was a wealth of meaning under his words. She and Klaus had worked against each more often than their goals had aligned, but he’d never let her chosen profession get in the way of what he claimed he wanted. He’d always done his best to push past the shield she wore, figuratively and literally, to find the woman, the wolf, behind the badge. But in his pursuit, he’d never ignored what she was trying to accomplish or how good she was at her job. It’d been the reason she’d never been able to fully shake him. He’d been as frustrated as he’d been fascinated by the cop.

But she didn’t feel up to picking through those layers. Not tonight. “Thank you,” she said simply.

Klaus’ head tipped and his gaze moved along her face. “I am somewhat disappointed that Donovan has chosen to abandon you so fully.”

Caroline’s fingers curled a little tighter around her glass, and she frowned at him. “You’re fishing.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what happened in the precinct, sweetheart. It’s all over your face. For all that you’ve chosen to disavow the packs in the city, you’ve always been a creature that seeks bonds.” Klaus took another pull on the bourbon. “Lockwood is a fool.”

Caroline set her teeth, because she agreed. “Putting a wolf in charge of other wolves is never a good idea.”

Not without a clear cut dominance already in place. Human laws required that they avoid inconvenient things like dominance fights, and she hadn’t been the only wolf to disappear from the force. Mason was strong. But he wasn’t quite strong enough to leash the city. Caroline wasn’t sure he understood that. Her ex-captain was a political beast, and his vision was short sighted.

Her wolf hated him.

Klaus licked along his lower lip, eyes probing. “Rumor has it Lockwood considers himself the Alpha, that he is trying to organize the packs.”

Caroline reached for the tequila. Her hand didn’t shake, but the hot spike of her wolf burned through her in a visceral rejection of such a move. When she glanced back up, Klaus was watching her with eyes gone calculating.

“Mason Lockwood is no one’s alpha. He isn’t strong enough.” Her words were curt.

The curve of his smile was dangerous. “Not for you.”

She shook her head. “He shouldn’t be strong enough for anyone.”

“Why?”

Scowling, Caroline took the shot. “Didn’t I say I didn’t want an interrogation?”

He made a low noise of derision. “This is hardly an interrogation, love. Merely… a conversation. I’d say one between friends, but we’ve never quite managed that, have we?”

“That’s because you’re a delinquent.”

His laugh was loud in the empty bar, the faint creases near his eyes doing unnecessary things to her chest. Dimples flashing, he shrugged. “Be as that may, that is hardly a current impediment.”

“You want to be friends?” The disbelief in her voice wasn’t faked. Caroline wasn’t sure either of them would easily be friends. The casual intimacy of it, the level of trust required for such a thing, it would always try to bleed into more. It was why she’d never let herself interact with him as anything but the cop.

His eyes brightened with the familiar witch fire, irises turning incandescent for a dozen heartbeats. “No.”

They stared at each other, the unspoken heat burning between them. Her wolf wouldn’t let her back down and Klaus had never given her an inch when he could take ground instead. Gaze narrowing, she let a hint of her wolf bleed into the open, the strict restraints of the cop gone. “Why bring me here?”

Something hot moved behind his eyes, a bright flash of the temper he hid behind the thin veneer of charm. “Your pain isn’t for public consumption, Caroline. It’s a private matter, with teeth. I don’t plan to share it.”

Her breath caught in her throat at the rage beneath his words. Her wolf liked that he understood. “I’m not yours to protect.”

He set his bottle down and pressed against the bar. “Not yet.”

Caroline’s gaze narrowed. “Arrogant.”

His dimples creased his cheeks and he shrugged. “Perhaps. But not entirely unfounded. We’ve known each other for ten years now, give or take. And neither my more… suspect activities not your previous profession has managed to cool the draw between us.”

Klaus was right and it was infuriating. There was something about him that tempted her, no matter what she told herself. Letting her wolf out to play, to challenge him, might have been a mistake. But it was no easy thing, to cage what lived beneath her skin. “I’m not even sure I’ll stay in the city.”

It was as close as she’d ever come to lying to him, and the angle of his jaw turned to stone. They stared at each other, tension a near violent thing between them, and she watched, fascinated, as he visibly unlocked his shoulders.

“Where would you go?”

Bemused at his iron restraint, Caroline shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He gave a short nod, the muscles in his jaw jumping. “Why leave at all?”

“If I stay, I become a direct challenge to Mason’s authority. He’s been systematically edging out any wolf strong enough to challenge him. And now, with a police force at his beck and call?” She shook her head slowly even as her wolf stretched its claws beneath her skin.

“If your concern is his influence in the city, that’s easily handled.” A curl of his lip, gaze intent on his face. “You could work for me.”

Caroline snorted, derision clear on her face. “You can’t be serious.”

Both of his brows arched, Klaus seemingly unbothered by her disbelief. “Why not?”

There were dozens of reasons. Working for Klaus would be a risk in more than one area, and she wasn’t sure if it was smart. “You cannot possibly want the extra scrutiny such a move would bring to your… business. Mason already hates you, helping me would not improve things.”

Klaus’ magic sparked across his eyes in tiny, golden starbursts. “Lockwood is going to have enough trouble now that it is clear he’s using the humans to build himself a tiny fiefdom. Picking a fight with me will not be in his best interest, but I do so hope he tries it.”

He meant it.

Staring at him, all Caroline could find was that dangerous calculation that had always fascinated as it had repelled. Fascinated, because Klaus had always been far more comfortable with the monster he’d become than she’d ever dared. Repelled, because the cop, her mother’s legacy, had always demanded she cage those instincts.

Agreeing to his offer would be dangerous.

“Klaus…”

“Caroline.”

The drawl of her name was a challenge. Setting her jaw, she pushed loose tendrils of her hair away from her face. “I’m not saying yes, but what on earth can you possibly expect I’d do?”

Opening his arms, Klaus smiled. “Work here.”

She blinked at him. “You want me to wait tables?”

“I want you to run the place. It needs a manager.”

He really couldn’t be serious. “I thought you didn’t own this bar?”

“A mere technicality.”

Exasperated, Caroline looked at the ceiling for patience. “I’m a cop. That skill set doesn’t exactly translate to managing a business. Much less a bar.”

“Nonsense,” Klaus dismissed. “You’re more than capable of anything you set your mind to, love. Running a bar is hardly the challenge of hunting a killer, true. But perhaps you owe it to yourself to give yourself a breather before you go headlong into your next adventure.”

He meant it. The tense set of his jaw, the way his full lips pressed briefly together. It was mostly impossible to hide a lie from her wolf, and she was cop trained. More importantly, she knew Klaus.

He’d give her this. A reprieve. A moment to find her feet. And maybe he’d even let her walk away. This terrible, fascinating man who held his people and his territory in an iron fist.

For the first time, Caroline wanted to kiss him. To taste that unflinching belief in her on his tongue, to see if he felt as good as he looked. Flexing her fingers against the wood, she forced herself to ignore the burn of want in her veins and think.

She’d loved this city. Caroline had lived as a lone wolf for too many years, watching her human mother age. She’d become a sheriff for her mom, had become a detective because it’d been familiar when she’d needed it. After her mother’s death, she’d walked away from her roots, her life and drifted for a decade. New York City had given her purpose. Klaus was part of that. But now she was cut loose from those ties, all her old human expectations, she knew her wolf would not so easily be pushed aside a third time.

Caroline had no desire to surrender another inch to Mason. Not of her life. Not of her city. And her wolf wanted Klaus. It always had and maybe she owed it to herself to discover why.

Something inside her chest settled, and she huffed to herself as she realized she’d needed this. To know that she wasn’t on her own again and beneath her rage and grief, she could see the start of a plan.

“Are you sure?” Caroline said slowly, glancing at Klaus from beneath her lashes. “I’m pushy. I’m likely to take over everything and claim it as mine, and don’t even get me started on the mess behind you.”

His slow curling smile was satisfied and devious in all the best ways, but he obligingly glanced over his shoulder. “Mess?”

She sighed heavily. “I thought you said you worked in a bar? Who organized the liquor, Klaus, and _why_ did they think this was a good idea?”

A low sound of amusement. “I’m sure you’ll set it to rights.” Caroline rolled her eyes, but her grumpy response was cut off as he braced a hand on the counter between them and leaned forward. His eyes were witch-blue, sparks of gold glittering along his iris. “As for the rest, claim what you will, love. Claim everything, if you like. But don’t be surprised if it claims you back.”

Her lips caught his before she’d thought the motion through. His unspoken warning that walking away would be no easy thing mingled with the promise his eyes made every time his gaze caught hers. The taste of his magic on his lips, the low rumble of surprise and want as his hands reached for her, was heady. Pulling away before he could tangle his fingers in her hair, she leaned back just enough that he’d have to follow her over the bar counter to kiss her again.

“Caroline.”

The edge in his voice, the glint behind his eyes left her lips inexplicably curling. Swiping her scarf from the counter, she didn’t bother hiding her amusement.

“Klaus.”

He didn’t chase her, though the slow drag of his tongue across his lips told her he was considering it. Gaze finally narrowing in a clear warning, he tipped his head to the side. “Is that a yes?”

Dragging her teeth along her lower lip just to watch his eyes chase the motion, she shrugged. “It’s a ‘have your people send me their best offer’ and I’ll think about it.”

His dimples teased his cheeks with a smile that was all danger. “I like a challenge, love. Are you sure you want to throw down this particular gauntlet?”

Buttoning her jacket, she shrugged. “I’ll guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

Spinning on her heel, Caroline didn’t let herself turn back, even when his laughter followed her into the snow. Smiling widening, she turned her face up into the falling snow. For the first time since she’d left her precinct without her badge, she could breathe properly.

She should probably avoid letting Klaus know that any time soon.


End file.
